ONLINE! Key Records pre-1837
Nonconformist Church Records
Family Tree Magazine's Guide to www.BMDRegisters.co.uk
Searching for ancestors before 1837 - the date that the civil registration of births, marriages and deaths in England and Wales was introduced - is set to become much easier. These Non-parochial Nonconformist records are coming online and often provide unique information about the events that they record: the births, baptisms, marriages, deaths and burials of our Nonconformist ancestors.
Genealogy digitisation experts, S&N Genealogy Supplies, have joined forces with The National Archives and have digitised key records of births and baptisms, deaths and burials, plus marriages. These records cover Non-parochial registers back in some instances to 1567, though the majority date from later. The digitised records at www.BMDRegisters.co.uk cover millions of individuals. These are some of the many people, who for whatever reason (religious conviction, to save money, living overseas) didn't marry of have their children baptised in an Anglican parish church. The first batch of records to be released (RG4 and RG5) covers 6 million individuals from areas all over England and Wales; the other collections help you track down Britons abroad, providing records from pretty much the whole of the British empire, wherever British citizens were born, married or died abroad.
Being non-parochial registers, the information covers key Nonconformist records and provides unique access to details of events, prior to civil registration and outside the established Church of England records. Not only are births and deaths, as well as the baptisms and burials, recorded, the Nonconfirmist records can also provide greater detail about familial relationships - with parents' and even grandparents' details sometimes included - a real boon to family historians.
The denominations covered by www.BMDRegisters.co.uk are Prebyterians, Independents, Baptists, Wesleyan Methodists and recusant Roman Catholics.
The registers of dissenting congregations are rare before persecution stopped, so the majority dates from the late-18th century onwards. Once persecution ceased, however, the dissenters' registries were established to try to overcome the authorities' refusal to accept Nonconformist records of birth as legal proof. Dr Williams' Library is probably the best-known collection of dissenters' registries and was the first to gather Nonconformist records. It was set up in 1742 (with retrospective records back to 1716) and kept records of Baptists, Independents and Presbyterians in London and within a 12-mile radius of the city. However, parents from most parts of the British Isles used the registry. Another registry, the Wesleyan Methodist Registry (also RG4) was founded (as the Metropolitan Registry) in 1818.
THE ORIGINALS
The originals of the records available at BMDRegisters.co.uk are in very delicate condition, so only brought out for research purposes on rare occasions. There is microfilm available, but unfortunately even these do not provide very user friendly access to the records, requiring a good understanding of cataloguing of the records before you can have a stab at finding an ancestor. Nevertheless these records remained one of the most popular records to be used in The National Archives Reading Room, indicating how important they are, that people were willing to undertake the challenge. The website, however, provides a route to results that couldn't be simpler, and the transcribed search results are all linked through to images of the originals.
To use www.BMDRegisters.co.uk: The website goes live on 14th September 2007. To use the site, register and then you'll be able to buy credits. It costs five credits to view the full details and another five to view the page image.
To learn more about what records will be included, click here.
www.BMDRegisters.co.uk
Step-by-Step
Imagine entering one ancestor's name, and being presented with them, their parents, and their grandparents - three generations of family history in one go. The Nonconformist registers on www.BMDRegisters.co.uk have been so carefully transcribed and digitised that this is exactly what you could receive. In addition to the pedigree, there is also a link through to images of the original documents, so that you can verify the accuracy of the transcription for yourself, ensuring that you are collecting your own ancestors, not someone else's. In amongst your ancestors, you can also find many famous Victorians. So lets take a look at how to use the database, starting with a search for the birth of Florence Nightingale.
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